The chaotic scene after the shots were fired
In a new book in Hebrew entitled HaIsh Shetza'ak Srak Srak (The Man Who Shouted False Alarm), Avi Zelinger and Ron Sharir managed to uncover a lot of new information about the murder of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin 27 years ago. The book also raises a lot of questions that the authors hope will be answered.
Twenty-seven years after the assassination of the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, which took place on the 12th of Cheshvan, 5756, November 4th, 1995, in the Malchei Yisrael Square in Tel Aviv, new facts still surface, turning everything upside down, again sharpening the difficult dilemmas and long-standing questions about the entire episode, much of which is still rumbling under the surface.
The book is the result of a wide ranging research of three years, backed by numbers testimonies, documents and disturbing revelations. Avi Zelinger is a historic researcher and expert on archives. His coauthor is Ran Sharir, owner of a leading agency in the field of public relations, counselling and the media, veteran investigator and editor for the media for the past decade. The whole truth was concealed, they claim, from the Israeli public about this earth-shattering assassination.
The book exposes new data about the events that preceded the murder as well, including disturbing fingerprints of top judicial figures, the Shabak and the ruling government, and heavy failures of security which left holes in the defensive security circle closest to Rabin at the most critical moments of the sterile area which should have protected him when he descended the stairs until his entering the armored car.
They also found a lot of information about implanted agent Avishai Raviv into the group of the rightist settlers in order to foment provocation and incitement to defame them to allow for the dismantling of settlements and various disagreements involved in the issues.
Raviv was especially close to Yigal Amir, the assassin, and was even revealed as partner up till the final stages of the assassination. Apparently, there were all the reasons for him to be put on trial and jailed, like the other friends and accomplices of Amir, except for the fact that the system feared involving him, and exonerated him without any blemish through a hasty court case designed to appease the public.
The truth is that Raviv was deeply implicated from the very beginning.
At the scene of the crime
The authors found that there were warnings and information that could have been used to stop Amir. There were various reports that including a conversion overheard in a men's room in Tel Aviv, but all were ignored.
But the most glaring issue was the agent provocateur Avishai Raviv. Originally (and maybe always) a true part of the right wing extremists, Raviv was hired by the Shin Bet to carry out extreme, provocative acts that would serve to taint the right and support the Oslo process.
There were ways to stop Avishai Raviv, whose imbedding within the Rightist camp was one of the biggest deceptions and was designed to remove the Rabin government from its dead-end position and continue the Oslo process that was under pressure because of the increase in Arab terror.
The government was committed to progress with the Arabs, but the right was getting increasingly upset and there were clear warnings that if the government pushed too hard it could lead to a civil war.
In response, Rabin and Peres sought a creative step by enlisting the head of the "Jewish section" of the Shabak to employ agents to foment and carry out violent provocations involving physical blows to Palestinians. Raviv did this in the employ of the Shabak but his actions were blamed upon the heads of the Right and the settlers. All of the worst and most extreme actions were carried out by Raviv and those he personally recruited.
Bill Clinton speaking at the funeral
Avishai Raviv and his partners established rightist organizations, Ayal being the most famous, which fomented virulent and violent hatred. At one point, this got out of hand and Raviv, rightist by personal leaning, revealed the truth.
One of the shocking testimonies of Netziv Efraim Bracha who was appointed to serve as head of an investigating team for the police, first relates to the interrogation of Chagai Amir three days after the assassination which astonished Bracha since it exposed that Raviv know about the murder attempt on Rabin before it took place. According to Chagai Amir, Raviv even participated actively in its planning but asked not to be involved in the act.
When Bracha asked the Shabak to arrange for Raviv's interrogation, to his surprise, he was told that Raviv was a "source" of the organization and was told not to report to anyone. This is what stopped the investigation before it even got off the ground.
In the protocol of Bracha's testimony, he said there were discrepancies between Chagai Amir's testimony about Raviv's involvement in the planned assassination, and the summation of the inquiry which he received from the Shabak. The Shabak investigators chose to ignore the information from the memos which they sent as well as the fact that they never publicized to the public at large, to this very day, that Raviv made a mockery of them and turned traitor at the final stage and did, in fact, take an active part in the planning.
Almost everyone who investigated the assassination felt that something was being covered up. Many concocted fantastic theories of what was being hidden. However from this research it seems that the main cover up was of the actions of Avishai Raviv as an agent of the Shabak.
